Blog Archives

So it’s the end of the day and I just remembered that my latest story, “Troubleshooting Your Doomsday Device,” came out from T Gene Davis’s Speculative Blog, and here’s another link to it! This is my first time appearing on Gene’s blog, and I’m pleased this story found a home there.

“Troubleshooting” is one-half of a conversation entirely from the perspective of the helpdesk operator talking poor Dr Dreadful through properly detonating his doomsday device. The title came from a Title Rummage Sale contest on Codex, an online writing forum, while the POV choice was inspired by “Half a Conversation, Overheard While Inside An Enormous Sentient Slug,” a marvelously funny story that I recommend you read right now. RIGHT NOW.

Also, if you haven’t read “Leslie’s Love Potion #4,” it’s still free to read at Galaxy’s Edge for another week or so. The link won’t exactly self-destruct on September 1, but after the end of August the link will send you to the newest issue and you’ll need to buy issue #21 to read my story, which looks like this:

I do not recommend actually trying to make Leslie’s Love Potion #4 unless you’re a fully trained witch/warlock. Sorry, kids.

In other Dantzel news, July was a busy month for sales! It’s feast or famine around here, I’m telling you. Contracts have been signed and all that so I feel free to mention I sold three reprints and three originals. WHEEEEEE! “Troubleshooting Your Doomsday Device” was one of those originals. In the coming months you can find my dark SF story “The Fascinator” in the Dark Magic: Witches, Hackers, and Robots anthology, and “A Vocabulary of Remorse” in the Science Fiction and the Medical Humanities Short Story Contest Anthology, which is another SF story, though decidedly less dark than “The Fascinator.” The announcement for the short list is here. Maybe the Sci-Fi and the Med Hum antho will have a different title – I’ll update when I know.

As for reprints, “Love, Your Wolpertinger” sold TWICE to reprint markets. Soon you’ll be able to read it in Truancy, a lovely magazine that seeks out legends and fairy tales, and listen to it on The Way of the Buffalo Podcast, a super cool podcast that is quite easy to subscribe to. Finally, “Birthing Fire” will be reprinted in the Mad Scientist Journal in the spring. It’s perfect story-to-market matches like this that tell me the world is a decent place.